Gormley sculptures begin to disappear from South Bank skyline

209,000 people visited Antony Gormley's Blind Light exhibition at The Hayward according to figures released this week. The 31 Event Horizon sculptures are now being removed.

Blind Light will now travel to New York

One of the 31 Event Horizon casts of Antony Gormley's body

The exhibition, which closed on Sunday, is the most visited show by a living artist in the 39-year history of The Hayward – and the fifth most popular exhibition to be held at the gallery since it opened in 1968.

Blind Light was the most successful exhibition at The Hayward since the Toulouse-Lautrec show 16 years ago.

The centrepiece of the exhibition, a luminous glass room filled with a dense cloud of mist, will be shown in New York this autumn.

But it was Event Horizon, the 31 sculptural casts of the artist's body situated on rooftops and public walkways around the gallery, which really caught the public imagination this summer.

When they first appeared in April they sparked a series of calls to the emergency services from concerned bystanders.